The invention relates to an armored vehicle for a self-propelled artillery weapon having conveying means for ammunition and the gun crew. Such arrangements are known in the state of the art and are, for example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,441.
In such known arrangement a self-driven ammunition and gun crew vehicle is prepared. The ammunition is transferred as the need arises onto a separate conveyor. However, this operation can not be effected without manual intervention by a crew member. In such known arrangement it is therefore necessary to transport each ammunition unit from a storage position onto a tray which is operatively connected to a motorized elevator which transfers the ammunition unit onto a conveyor belt which in turn transports the ammunition unit to the self-propelled gun. The afore-described steps in this known arrangement can not be effected without the manual intervention of a crew member. Because of the required manual handling with this known arrangement there can only be loaded a limited number of ammunition units during a predetermined loading time onto the weapon carrier which also limits the shortening of the loading time for the artillery weapon. Moreover, this known arrangement lacks armor protection outside of the armored vehicle so that no separate armor protection is provided for the ammunition units during the transfer from the armored storage vehicle to the armored weapons carrier vehicle proper which usually carries a self-propelled gun. This lack of armor-protection is dangerous for the gun crew. The ammunition units are stored horizontally in the armored storage vehicle in a plurality of stacks. At least a portion of these horizontally stored ammunition unit stacks are arranged transversely with respect to the direction of travel of the vehicle. The individual ammunition units are stored in separate cylindrical containers from which they must be pulled out before the can be placed on the elevator. In order to transport a large number of ammunition units with this known arrangement it is necessary to stack the individual ammunition units from the floor up to the ceiling of the armored storage vehicle which a causes an unfavorable upward displacement of the center of gravity of the armored storage vehicle. Moreover, the armored ammunition storage vehicle when fully loaded becomes more vulnerable to a direct hit. Due to the fact that at least one separate crew member is required for servicing the conveying means of the arrangement and further that such crew member must be accommodated in the crew's quarters causes a reduction of personnel available for firing and other combat functions. Also there is no separate fuel storage tank provided for the armored ammunition storage vehicle. Due to the fact that the crew quarters for the driver are disposed forwardly and the spend ammunition shell ejection opening is disposed rearwardly of the armored vehicle the docking procedure with a separate armored weapons carrier vehicle can only be carried out indirectly.